Manufacturing and production companies leverage the plant maintenance life cycle. Companies often adopt SpheraCloud Control of Work and Master Data Management (MDM) to ensure safety and efficiency in maintenance procedures and to maximize the return on investment in their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
What is the plant maintenance life cycle?
The plant maintenance life cycle is a framework to ensure that maintenance activities are data-driven, timely and seamlessly integrated into daily operations. It facilitates clear communication between maintenance and operations teams to maximize plant efficiency and increase operational uptime.
All companies that produce physical products leverage the plant maintenance life cycle through their preferred ERP system, in particular SAP, or through enterprise asset management systems such as Maximo. This is particularly true for industries including oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, chemicals, mining and metals, utilities, automotive, manufacturing or semiconductors.
Sometimes referred to as “closed-loop maintenance,” “preventative maintenance life cycle” or “work-order life cycle,” this multi-phase process provides the foundation for efficient maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) activities.
WHO THIS AFFECTS
Ensuring seamless operations and efficient upkeep
A poorly executed plant maintenance strategy negatively impacts the bottom line, affecting everyone at the facility. However, when production is halted, all eyes turn to the maintenance and operations teams. These teams have a direct impact on the uptime of a facility. If the preventative maintenance is poor, equipment does not run optimally.
Even in the most well-run facilities, maintenance and operations teams still may see inefficiencies in the form of:
- Long delays in obtaining permits.
- Inefficiencies in maintenance due to difficulty finding proper parts.
- Recurring mistakes on maintenance jobs.
- Poor field visibility to simultaneous operations (SIMOPS).
- Ineffective communication between operations and maintenance regarding the schedule.
- Unplanned downtime due to missing critical spares.
Finding a solution to these issues is vital. By leveraging Sphera’s solutions, operators and maintenance professionals can improve data accuracy and streamline processes, resulting in greater plant safety and efficiency.
HOW SPHERA CAN HELP
How SpheraCloud resolves maintenance and operations challenges
Within the plant maintenance life cycle, SpheraCloud Master Data Management (MDM) for MRO ensures that maintenance planners get accurate and reliable spare parts data, which is essential for identifying the correct components required for a job.
With Sphera’s Control of Work, permitting and isolation procedures are standardized with industry best practices to maximize efficiency.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Control of Work: Enhancing scheduling, execution and documentation
Sphera’s Control of Work Software is designed to enhance safety, efficiency and communication during the “schedule,” “execute” and “document” phases of the plant maintenance life cycle.
Schedule phase: Ensuring safety
- Risk-based scheduling: SpheraCloud Control of Work offers a Risk-Based Scheduler tool, which is used after resource-level scheduling takes place. The Risk-Based Scheduler looks at all tasks and makes sure various activities don’t conflict with one another.
Execute phase: Enabling safe and efficient job execution
- Efficiency and safety: Control of Work enables the copying of permits from past jobs.
- Safety guardrails: The software ensures that safety-critical business processes are followed.
Document phase: Recording lessons learned
- Recording lessons learned: Control of Work makes it easy to document lessons learned and apply them to similar jobs.
- Transparency and visibility: The software provides the visibility to work around blocks to the workflow.
FOR MORE CONTEXT
MDM for MRO: Enhancing planning and data management
Maintenance planners need the right parts at the right time, and they need quick and easy access. Sphera’s MDM for MRO Solution meets this requirement by optimizing and standardizing spare parts data for maximum consistency and reliability.
Through effective data management, planners are able to efficiently locate materials and components. MDM for MRO capabilities support and facilitate planning tasks.
- Material Master Assessment Software: Evaluates the condition of MRO data before the cleansing process to support accuracy and relevance.
- Bill of materials and service masters integration: Makes it easier to locate individual parts and understand service descriptions, which results in more effective purchasing.
- Search functionality: Provides a Google-like search through the entire material master, allowing planners to quickly find the correct parts and materials.
- Standardization and cataloging: Uses Sphera’s Standard Modifier Dictionary, which includes templates for over 2,800 types of parts for consistent classification.
- Configurable data governance: Promotes efficiency with workflows, rules and roles-based capabilities. The solution is multilingual and works seamlessly with various ERP systems.
THE BENEFITS
Maintaining operational excellence
Incorporating Sphera’s Control of Work and MDM into your plant maintenance strategy can lead to significant improvements in data management, safety and efficiency. These solutions are specifically designed to address the complexities of modern industrial operations, enabling your plant to remain at the forefront of technology and best practices.
Sphera’s comprehensive approach
By leveraging these advanced tools, you can transform your plant maintenance strategy and optimize all stages of the plant maintenance life cycle. Whether you aim to enhance execution and documentation with Control of Work or streamline planning, Sphera has the solutions to help you achieve and maintain operational excellence.
Sphera is routinely recognized by independent analysts as a top leader in the process safety management (PSM) software market. Recently, our industry-leading solutions received the top score in the Verdantix Green Quadrant: Process Safety Management Software 2023 report.
Sphera’s Control of Work is an Integrated Safe System of Work (ISSoW) that has won numerous awards, among them, the 2020 Hydrocarbon Processing Award for Best Process/Plant Optimization Technology.
